Memory of Dog 2, 1982 - Photo by Daido Moriyama

Provoke no. 2, 1969 - Photo by Daido Moriyama

Tokyo, 2011 - Photo by Daido Moriyama

Another Country in New York, 1971 - Photo by Daido Moriyama

Misawa, 1971 - Photo by Daido Moriyama

William Klein + Daido Moriyama opens at Tate Modern in London: the exhibition explores the relationship between the artistic paths of two of the most celebrated living photographers, both active since the post-war years. Two side-by-side retrospectives examine the careers of the two artists, the range of their techniques and methods, their stylistic innovation and the ultimate need they share, albeit with different outcomes.

Starting from spatial layout, the exhibition creates an affinity on many levels. Visually, they share an urgent photographic style, dirty, blurred, with overexposed and out-of-focused images - evidence of their shared refusal of any pretence of camera objectivity. When it comes to operative context, they concentrate entirely on urban reality, in particular on the streets of New York and Tokyo, a favoured field of observation for both; their attention is rapt by street views, details, crowds, billboards, parades. No less important on the exposition level is the fact that both Klein and Moriyama prefer the photo-book as a channel for their work, as it allows for a degree of improvement of the creative process through picture-editing and graphic design. These are the basis for the photo-book Life is Good and Good for You in New York: Trance Witness Revels where Klein presents its vision of Manhattan in a tabloid style, or Moriyama’s work in the magazine Provoke, the subversive publication created by a small circle of Japanese photographers. Yet, what we see emerging are not only the parallel paths, but also the difference in the approaches and the results of both artists.

William Klein, born in New York in 1928, has a noisier, more frenzied and turbulent vision – a strong dynamism in composition is a trademark of his shoots, where the subjects are often active protagonists. He wanders amongst genres and techniques, he is equally at ease shooting fashion for Vogue commissioned by Alexander Lieberman and as a reporter of the 1968 Paris youth protests. As a painter, at the start of his career, he also excels in film with movies like Who Are You, Polly Magoo?, a satire on the fashion industry. His approach to photography is carnal, celebrative.

Daido Moriyama, born in Osaka in 1938, obsessive voyeur of the urban life, represents emptier, darker cities, which he concentrates in images with a strong graphic simplicity. He is more distant from his subjects, his pictures elaborate on the theme of memory, like the series Tales of Noto (his reinterpretation of a story he read as a child set in the village of Tono) or Record, an autobiographical photo-journal on his life in the city. His more solitary, somehow abstract approach is particularly accessible in the series Memories of a Dog, in which the intimate portrait of a lonely stray dog on the road allows the photographer, and the viewer, a degree of identification.

The comparison between these two artists does not therefore lie in the similarity of their style or of the context they operate in; nor is it in the difference of their approaches and results. What they share is the need to still delve into the reality of the urban experience, whether riveting or alienating, in America or in Japan. In this lies the indissoluble rapport in the work of those pioneers of their generation.

Open until January 20th.

William Klein + Daido Moriyama10 October 2012 – 20 January 2013Tate Modern, London